Month: March 2006

The Bush Administration is proposing to sell more than 300-thousand acres of public forest land to raise money for schools in rural communities. Lawmakers, environmentalists and former Forest Service directors have come out against the plan, calling it short-sighted and shameful. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

The Bush Administration is proposing to sell more than 300-thousand
acres of public forest land to raise money for schools in rural
communities. Lawmakers, environmentalists and former Forest Service
directors have come out against the plan, calling it short-sighted and
shameful. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:

The goal of the plan is to raise 800 million dollars for schools that have
lost money generated by timber sales, but lawmakers from both parties
say auctioning off forest land is short-sighted. Environmental groups say
it’s one of the latest attempts by the Bush administration to give oil,
timber and mining interests access to pristine natural areas.

Amy Mall is with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“These lands are part of America’s natural legacy. Some of them are really wild
areas where there is very high-quality wildlife habitat. They might be
areas where a lot of people recreate. They might go hunting or fishing.
Or they might just think that these areas should remain wild.”

An agriculture department official described most of the land proposed for sale
as isolated and expensive to manage.

For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

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A group of electric utilities hopes the EPA appeals a recent ruling in a major air pollution case. Coal-burning power plants, refineries and older factories are watching the case closely. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A group of electric utilities hopes the EPA appeals a recent ruling in a major air
pollution case. Coal-burning power plants, refineries and older factories
are watching the case closely. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

A court in Washington D.C. recently ruled against the EPA’s plan to
make changes in the new source review portion of the federal Clean Air
Act. The Bush Administration had wanted to make it easier for utilities to
make major upgrades at power plants without having to install expensive
pollution controls. But fourteen states worried the plants would just get
bigger and pollute more…so they had sued the EPA.

The Electric Reliability Coordinating Council represents some power
companies across the U.S. Council Director Scott Segal says the federal
agency ought to appeal the new source ruling.

“Because they would not want this court case to stand as a principled
statement of environmental law.”

Environmentalists have cheered the recent court decision on new source
review, but said they expected it would be a while before utilities and the
EPA would accept the decision.

For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Every year freighters wash two hundred million pounds of refuse into the Great Lakes leaving the equivalent of underwater gravel roads along shipping lanes. The practice is called “cargo sweeping” and it’s allowed in spite of U.S laws and an international treaty banning dumping in the lakes. The GLRC’s Charity Nebbe has more:

Transcript

Every year freighters wash two hundred million pounds of refuse into the
Great Lakes leaving the equivalent of underwater gravel roads along
shipping lanes. The practice is called “cargo sweeping” and it’s allowed
in spite of U.S. laws and an international treaty banning dumping in the
lakes. The GLRC’s Charity Nebbe has more:

The dumping occurs when cargo ships pump water over the deck and
through loading tubes to wash away any refuse that has collected from
the loading and unloading process. Industry insiders say the practice is
necessary to protect the safety of the crew and the integrity of the cargo.

James Weakley is President of the Lake Carriers’ Association.

“I’m very confident that what we’re putting over the side are naturally
occurring substances… and we’ve been doing this practice for hundreds
of years and as yet we haven’t seen an environmental harm.”

Critics are concerned about toxins that might be carried in the coal, iron
ore, and slag jettisoned by the ships, and they’re concerned about the
habitat that might be buried under the refuse.

This year the U.S. Coast Guard is reviewing the 1993 interim policy that
allows cargo sweeping, but as of yet no scientific study has been
commissioned.

Transcript

A new study says when air pollution in cities decline, the number of pre-
mature deaths goes down as well. The GLRC’s Mark Brush reports:

The study tracked around 8,000 people from 1974 to 1998. In that time,
air pollution levels dropped, and researchers say the number of premature deaths
decreased over time as well.

Francine Laden is the lead author of the study published in the American
Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. She says small air
pollution particles, such as soot, cause health complications:

“What’s happening is that these particles are very, very tiny, and they get
very deep into the lung. And when they get deep into the alveoli and the
lung, they irritate the lung and can cause respiratory disease, and they
can also get into the bloodstream and then affect factors that are
associated with cardiovascular or heart disease.”

This study supports earlier findings that reduced air pollution increases
life spans. Laden says more progress can be made in cleaning up the
nation’s air, and thereby extending the lives of more people.

For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

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The Environmental Protection Agency is drafting a rule that would require contractors to be certified before working on projects that involve lead-based paint. It’s part of a larger push to eliminate childhood lead poisoning as a major health concern. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency is drafting a rule that would
require contractors to be certified before working on projects that involve
lead-based paint. It’s part of a larger push to eliminate childhood lead
poisoning as a major health concern. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley
reports:

Under the rule, contractors would have to take training courses, and get
formal certifications, before being allowed to work on projects that could
disrupt lead-based paint. It would apply to work done in homes built
before 1978, where a child under the age of six resides.

Ben Calo is the president of a lead-abatement company in southeast
Michigan. He says the measure would be a hassle for contractors… but it’s a
good idea for homeowners.

“They know that there’s something wrong with lead, but they trust that
the contractor that comes in is going to take all the proper precautions.
I’m not saying that they’re not good contractors, it’s just that if you’re not
required to do this, you don’t do it.”

The EPA says the rule would add about 500-dollars to the cost of large
renovation projects involving lead-based paint.

For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley

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Some big city mayors and urban legislators say insurance rates are unfair to people who live in cities. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports, state legislatures are reluctant to change insurance rate structures in fear of angering suburban voters:

Transcript

Some big city mayors and urban legislators say insurance rates are unfair
to people who live in cities. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports, state
legislatures are reluctant to change insurance rate structures in fear of
angering suburban voters:

Insurance rates are higher in cities than they are in suburbs. Often
they’re much higher. Peter Kuhnmuench is an insurance industry
spokesman with the Insurance Institute of Michigan. He says there are
more risks and more insurance claims in the cities that drive up the costs.

“We see a higher incidence of fire and burglary and theft in the urban
areas typically than you do in the suburban areas.”

And although suburban residents typically drive their cars farther to
work, drivers in the city have more collisions and theft claims.

Legislators in cities want the insurance costs tp be spread out across a wider
population, but suburban legislators don’t want their residents to have to
subsidize urban insurance rates. Those in the city say the irony is:
through tax dollars, their residents are forced to subsidize more lanes of traffic for
the suburbanites who commute to work in the city.

For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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When we go to the movies, we expect to escape from reality. Visiting aliens, time travel, extinct animals coming back to life… that’s the dazzling stuff blockbusters are made of. But not everybody is thrilled by the way scientists look in the movies. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has the story of screenwriters who want to make movie scientists a little less weird:

Transcript

When we go to the movies, we expect to escape from reality. Visiting
aliens, time travel, extinct animals coming back to life, that’s the dazzling
stuff blockbusters are made of. But not everybody is thrilled by the way
scientists look in the movies. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has the
story of screenwriters who want to make movie scientists a little less
weird:

(Theme music from “Back To The Future”)

So Dr. Frankenstein and Doc Brown from “Back to the Future” are a
little… freaky. But they’re smart… and enterprising. But those kinds of wacky
movie scientists make real life scientists hurl their popcorn.

Researcher Paula Grisafi says movie stereotypes about scientists are actually
worse than those about lawyers or politicians.

“My sense of movies about scientists is that there are maybe 10% good
guys and 90% bad guys. Or not even just bad guys but misguided, even
when they’re trying to be good, they’re usually sufficiently misguided
that what they start out to do turns out wrong.”

Paula Grisafi says there are a few oddballs in real science labs, but she says her peers are really much more normal.

Really — instead of hair frizzing out of control… they have nice haircuts. And they never, ever wear pocket protectors. Grisafi’s day job is at MIT in
Cambridge, but she’s also an aspiring screenwriter. She’s working on
scripts that she says shake up the Hollywood stereotypes.

“These sort of scientist archetypes are Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde.
They’re people who were loners obsessed with their work to the point of
being a danger to themselves or to others. It’s usually frowned upon in
science to experiment on yourself.”

Take Jeff Goldblum’s character Seth Brundle, in “The Fly.” When
Brundle tests his transport machine on himself, the experiment backfires.
Brundle becomes a genetic mutant, but he’s kinda proud of it.

Paula Grisafi admits there are a few movies that show scientists as
somewhat normal people. Jodie Foster’s character in “Contact” for
example. But Grisafi says there aren’t enough to balance out the weirdos.
She says at worst, distorted images of scientists might give audiences the
impression that science is more dangerous than good.

So Grisafi jumped at the chance to be part of a screenwriting workshop
for scientists in LA last summer. It was an intense crash course with
sessions called Plot and Character, and of course, Agents and Managers.

The workshop was dreamt up by Martin Gundersen. He’s an electrical
engineer who’s had a brush with fame. He added credibility to Val
Kilmer’s lasers in the film “Real Genius.”

“I’ve met people now who are young faculty members who have told me
they were influenced by that picture to think seriously about science.”

Martin Gundersen says if the scientists in movies were more appealing,
more people might want to go into the sciences. He says the Defense
Department and companies like Boeing are really concerned that fewer
people want careers in science and engineering. In fact, Gundersen
actually landed money from the Pentagon for the workshop.

But Gundersen admits he’s still testing the theory that scientists can be
screenwriters.

“Oh it’s impossible (laughs). That’s the thing – you can’t promise that
somebody’s going to get their picture made. To me the truest cliché in
Hollywood is that everyone has a script.”

And so, can chemists and engineers possibly compete?

One box office expert says — sure. Paul Dergarabedian is president of
Exhibitor Relations Company in LA. He says scientists have as good a
chance as anyone at selling a script… as long as their stories are
compelling.

“And it’s the more interesting characters who bring that scientific
element, or you have a scientist who’s not the typical nerdy scientist. He
might be more of a sophisticated kind of character in terms of lets say a ladies’
man or something like that you wouldn’t necessarily expect.”

And actually, there is a ladies’ man in one of Paula Grisafi’s scripts. Her
story features two rivals thrown together to figure out why sea life is
dying. The stars of the story are a lovely young marine ecologist and a
hotshot microbiologist from Norway. Grisafi’s been advised that playing
up the romance might help sell the story.

“I guess I was sort of writing for a PG audience. I spent eight years in
Catholic girls’ school so I’m not sure how competent I’m going to be to
write really steamy sex scenes, but I’ll make an effort.”

Grisafi says even if she never sells a script, she’ll still get up at 5 a.m. to
write, and then she’ll put in a full day at the lab.

These new screenwriters hope to prove you don’t have to be a mad
scientist or a loner in the lab to invent movies that sell tickets.

Transcript

People who live in the city pay higher insurance rates for cars and homes
than people in the suburbs. Often it’s a lot more. The insurance industry
says it’s using the fairest method. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports
that method might contribute to urban sprawl:

(Sound of car starting)

We’re taking a little drive and Brandi Stoneman is showing me where she used to live.
It’s just two-and-a-half miles from where she works. But… she met a guy… they
dated… they fell in love… and after a while decided to move in together.
His house was bigger. So, Brandi moved from her home near downtown
and out to his house 15 miles out into the suburbs.

When she told her insurance agent… she got a surprise. Her auto
insurance rates dropped… a lot.

“It almost was in half when they—when I told them I’d moved and
changed and it almost dropped in half. Of course I was excited, but it
was amazing. It was a huge difference.”

“Did you ask them why?”

“I did ask them why and they said, of course, that it was the area that I
lived in. It went by the zip code and it didn’t have really have much to do
with the fact that I was farther away from work.”

So, instead of five miles to work and back… she drives 30 miles… to the
same downtown location, but that wasn’t the only surprise. She kept her
old home in town… so, like her boyfriend, she still needed to buy
homeowners insurance.

“And when we both were looking and shopping for insurance rates, I
spent about three-to-four hundred dollars on my premium on a house that
was almost half the price of his, and that was, again, because of where I
lived and the zip code and the area that I live in.”

If you live in the city… this might sound familiar. You probably know a
colleague or friend in the suburbs who’s paying a lot lower insurance
rates. Stoneman lives in Michigan. That state’s Office of Financial and
Insurance Services spokesman, Ken Ross, says it’s typical of insurance
rates across the country.

“Our urban population centers have experienced higher rates for both
home and auto insurance. That is a function of insurance companies
pairing the higher costs associated with living in an urban environment, higher
concentration of people with higher losses and those losses are paired
with rates being filed and ultimately premiums being charged to
consumers who live in those areas.”

And the regulators say that’s a pretty fair way of doing things. The
insurance industry also thinks it’s fair.

Peter Kuhnmuench is with the Insurance Institute of Michigan.

“Largely because of the density of the population, the incidents of
collision, the incidents of theft are much higher in an urban area than
they are out in the outlying suburban areas.”

Kuhnmuench says if people choose to live in the city, they should expect
to pay higher insurance rates. He agrees that the lower rates in the
suburbs might be an incentive to move there.

“Well, I would certainly believe that cost factors for insurance would be
a contributing factor to your decision to move from the city to the
suburbs. Obviously, higher insurance rates reflected in the city could be
one of those contributing factors, I guess, Lester, but overall those rates
pretty much reflect the underlying costs to provide the coverage in those
areas.”

Different state legislatures have considered laws that would make
insurance rates less dependent on where you live, but those kinds of bills
usually don’t even make it to a vote because legislators don’t want to
anger suburban voters by making them subsidize urban insurance costs.

So instead, more people move to the suburbs and ironically, everybody else
subsidizes the cost of new suburban streets, more lanes of highways, and
other infrastructure costs associated with the sprawling suburbs and
accommodating the people who commute to the city.

And while the lower insurance rates encourage a move to the suburbs,
big city mayors say the higher rates in urban areas discourage
redevelopment in the city. Those mayors, urban legislators, and
advocacy groups lobby state legislatures to find an insurance rate
structure that doesn’t penalize those people who choose to live in the city
and reward those who spread out to the suburbs.

Transcript

Springtime in your city may bring a visit from an animal rights group
that wants to protect chickens from what they say is excessive cruelty
by Colonel Sanders. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says KFC restaurants serve
chickens that suppliers have killed inhumanely. So, PETA is revving up
its Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign, holding protests outside KFC
outlets, with PETA workers often dressed in costumes.

Lindsay Rajt sometimes wears a police uniform so she can do a mock
arrest of someone else dressed as Colonel Sanders. Rajt wants KFC
suppliers to switch to technology that slowly withdraws the air around
their live chickens.

“And it will actually basically put the birds to sleep… it’s the most
humane method out there.”

Rajt would also like Congress to change the Humane Slaughter Act, so
that it would no longer exempt chickens. KFC’s corporate parent has
repeatedly said it does not tolerate animal abuse by any of its
suppliers. But PETA says it plans to take its message to hundreds of
cities this year.

For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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It’s been a challenging winter for moose and wolves on Isle Royale National Park. The moose population has declined to its lowest level since researchers began observing them 48 years ago. It’s the world’s longest running study of predator-prey relationships. With their food supply dwindling, the wolves have responded by attacking each other. The GLRC’s Gretchen Millich reports:

Transcript

It’s been a challenging winter for moose and wolves on Isle Royale National Park. The moose
population has declined to its lowest level since researchers began observing them 48 years ago.
It’s the world’s longest running study of predator-prey relationships. With their food supply
dwindling, the wolves have responded by attacking each other. The GLRC’s Gretchen Millich
reports:

John Vucetich is a wildlife biologist at Michigan Tech University. He says the latest count on
Isle Royale found only 450 moose. That’s down from 11-hundred four years ago. Vucetich says
the food shortage has led one wolf pack to invade the territory of another. During a flyover in
January, he witnessed the killing of an alpha male by rival wolves.

“Just a circle of wolves, all of their noses focused on one spot, you can’t even see the victim wolf
at all, tails along the outside just wagging vigorously and that goes on for two minutes or so, and then
the wolves walk away and there’s nothing left but a bloody lifeless carcass in the snow.”

The situation won’t last long. Vucetich says that by next year, wolves will start to decline and
soon moose will make a comeback on Isle Royale.